Speaking of the Grand Duchesses' crushes, Maria also had what could be considered a "first love." Many here may have heard of a soldier named Nickolai "Kolya" Dmitrievich Demenkov, whom I believe she first met at Mogilev in 1915, when she was a sixteen year old girl just starting to blossom into womanhood. I find it amusing to read that she would sometimes jokingly sign her letters to her father as "Mrs. Kolya Demenkov" (something that girls with crushes do even today, referring to themselves as Mrs. so-and-so) and wait on a balcony to watch him pass by. On this site you can even read a few letters to her father which include references to him, including this one I found from September 5, 1915: "...We are drinking tea now. We had a very nice walk. N.D. (Nickolai Dmitrievich Demenkov - an officer of the Guards' Crew. Maria was in love with him) was on duty and we talked nicely through the open window." I have read that the feelings were apparently mutual and that the young man knew of her crush, so it was no secret to him. This probably would not have ended up as anything serious due to Kolya's lower rank, but nevertheless I find it sad that this innocent flirtation, which is so natural a part of a young woman's life, was not allowed to continue, due to purely external circumstances beyond their control. It was unnaturally cut short, and Maria was forced to stop dreaming about her crush and face the harsh realities of her rapidly disintegrating world, which made her mature faster than she would have under ordinary conditions. I can only wonder what happened to this man, if he was killed in the war or if he survived; if it was the latter, what interesting memories he could have had to share, having briefly been the object of adoration of the Tsar's daughter!
Five years before that serious crush, Maria had apparently developed a childish crush on someone else, who remains a mystery as far as I know. The first reference alluding to this dates from the time she was just eleven years old. Here is an interesting letter from her mother, dated from 1910, which I found on livadia.org:
"I had long ago noticed that you were sad, but did not ask because one does not like it when others ask...Try not to let your thoughts dwell too much on him, that's what our Friend said...I know he likes you as a little sister, and would like to help you not to care too much, because he knows you, a little Grand Duchess, must not care for him so...Be brave and cheer up and don't let your thoughts dwell so much upon him. It's not good and makes you yet more sad."
I like the tender way that the mother comforts the child, not ridiculing her for this innocent crush nor harshly admonishing her for daring to like someone beneath her rank; instead, she states that "a little Grand Duchess must not care for him so" - thus still making her point, but in a gentle way, and she seems more concerned about her daughter's sad state of mind than anything else.
My last point on this topic concerns something that I found very touching - not a crush that Maria had on someone, but rather a lifelong crush someone else had on her. That is, of course, that of her cousin, Prince Louis Battenburg, a.k.a. Louis Mountbatten (his mother was Alexandra's oldest sister Victoria). He was apparently madly in love with her, and always kept her picture by his bedside until he was assasinated in 1979. How very touching it is that he kept alive the memory of the beautiful young girl that he had loved in his youth - a memory of another time - even after many years when she had been long dead. Yet she was kept eternally young and beautiful and happy in his memories and in his photographs, until his own tragic end.
